Sociology and the Two Faces of Human Rights

This article begins with a reference to Turner and Water's debate over a foundational versus constructionist approach to human rights. Noting some scope for complementarity between the two, it moves on to consider a different divide; human rights discourse as the driver of expressive and expansive social movements; and human rights practice as deployed in the interests of power and control. The former is explored in relation to rights, recognition and 'cosmopolitanisation', and the latter in relation to closure, deficit and false universals. A return to the classics is suggested as one route to furthering analysis and understanding of both perspectives.